


Find The Cost

by ballantine



Series: Departures [4]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Amnesia, Artificial Intelligence, Canon-Typical Violence, Ideologues in love, M/M, Secrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-02-15 22:38:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2245947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/ballantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Raven have always taken care to avoid trouble with the Genoshan Empire, running a school quietly out of their ship Cerebro and keeping mostly to the Backsystem. The sudden appearance of new acquaintances and old secrets will challenge their priorities and change the course of their lives forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Raven

**Author's Note:**

> I've tried to make this story as standalone as possible, so you hopefully don't need to read the previous parts for it to make sense. 
> 
> Here's a [reference map](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/fortywinks/1358053/349/349_original.jpg) if needed.

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters_  
The B.R.V. Cerebro  
Backsystem, approaching Outback orbit  
_Date 3725.1_

–

_Mystique, it is time to wake up._

A melodious voice was whispering in her mind. Normally she found it soothing, pleasant, but at the moment it was the worst sound in the world. She tightened her pillow over her ears, like that would do a damn thing to block the intrusion.

_Mystique, it is time to wake up._

_OffoffOFF_ she thought, screwing her eyes tighter shut. _Snooze!_

The voice went a little wry. _Mystique, you ordered me never to fall for that._

A pause and then, relentless: _Mystique, it is time to wake up._

“Oh me _god_ ,” Raven said at last, opening her eyes and levering her self up to sitting. “I'm up, okay, just please _be quiet_.”

Cerebra kindled in her mind, affectionate like a warm embrace around sulky shoulders. _Good morning, Mystique._

 _Ugh_ Raven thought in return as she swung her legs out of bed and scratched her hairline. _What time is it?_ She felt like she'd only closed her eyes a few minutes ago. The past couple of weeks had been very hectic, and Raven was starting to burn out.

The ship answered her real question. _You have a class in two hours and a meeting with Erik in the afternoon. Would you like me to organize your meeting notes?_ The ship added brightly.

Raven paused. Maybe it was pointless and silly, but she always ended up feeling guilty if she foisted off mundane tasks onto the AI. And Cerebra _knew_ that she preferred to do as much of her own work as possible, so Raven didn't think the offer was motivated by pure altruism.... _I can do that, it's fine. Thank you, Cerebra._

The ship hummed back with a slightly disconsolate air. Raven made a face at nothing in particular and went to go shower.

It was Erik having this effect, Raven thought as she scrubbed her arms and shoulders. She had been starting to nurse the frankly _insane_ suspicion that the ship might have a little crush on its new passenger.

She hadn't talked to Hank about it yet to get his take on the matter. It sounded too ridiculous to put into words, _“Hank, have you noticed that the lights brighten a little when Erik walks into the room? Or that Cerebra sounds positively girlish when she utters his name?”_ (Of course, she didn't know how it translated in Hank's mind, it'd be much more strange for the Cerebra's male voice to sound girlish.)

Adding an awkward and slightly embarrassing aspect to the whole situation, Raven didn't know how much of this – crush, or whatever, had to do with Erik's admittedly strong mutant powers of magnetism or – and here was where the embarrassing part came in – how much of it was perhaps a reflection of Charles's own feelings.

And Charles was a whole different bundle of issues at the moment.

After showering and dressing, Raven made her way down to the kitchen for breakfast.

It was still too early in the day for most of the students to be up, so she was at least spared having to navigate all the racing and shouting that accompanied their mornings. This was, not incidentally, the time of day Raven liked best. (As soon as she got past the actual getting out of bed part.)

For various reasons – being a start-up school with a young faculty, operating mostly up in the black (though they spent approximately a quarter of the year stationed at Muir on the Outback Orbit) – well, for various reasons, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters had a fairly small student population. At the moment, in between semester turnover and a few incidents, it was positively miniscule. Two students under the age of ten, three who were in middle school range, and now five teenagers. The range and unevenness of ages was a constant headache to administer. Raven counted herself lucky that she could change her appearance, given how much hair she probably pulled out while drafting their latest annual report for the accreditation board.

So she liked her quiet, student-free walk through the ship in the mornings.

Cerebro was outfitted more like one of those corporate luxury ships than any other school or backsystem research vessel that Raven had ever seen. They had a kitchen and dining room instead of a galley and mess. The corridors were all generously wide and tall (“Unnecessary use of space,” Hank had muttered while working on the designs back on Genosha years ago), and brightly lit with top-of-the-line full-spectrum light installations, as close as one could get to actual Vega rays while off-planet. The wall paneling was all done in rich colors and real wood trim. Most doorways, with the exception of those off-limits to students, were honest-to-god actual doors.

She had thought of Charles's design requests as fairly random preferences, an example of the impractical and eccentric priorities of Old Money. And, okay, that wasn't too far off the mark – but it was far from random.

Charles's family estate, the actual grounds and building where he'd grown up, had been on the market for a year or two when Raven had first met him. By the time the estate was actually bought, Hank was well into building Cerebro. Raven's first visit to the old mansion was Charles's last; he'd overseen the move of some of the more delicate and large pieces of furniture, signed the final documents, and then disappeared for five days on a bender back in Mirador City.

She'd barely taken two steps into the entrance hall when she realized where all the design quirks came from; Charles was recreating as much of his childhood home as he could.

It was bizarre. She hadn't even known he was fond of the place. There was a whole wing of the house – his childhood rooms, in fact – that he refused to even step into when visiting. At one point Raven had quietly slipped away to go poking around, but all she found was the same type of covered furniture and quiet, echoing rooms as seen in the rest of the house. His main bedroom had an enormous window overlooking a forest to the north; it was beautiful. Peaceful and quiet.

Raven didn't understand, but she'd already realized at this point that confidence with Charles was mostly a one-way street.

–

Raven grabbed a cup of coffee from the kitchen, sending a _thank you, you're forgiven_ to Cerebra, and went to curl up in a chair opposite Hank in the dining room.

Hank's own breakfast – a mug of no-doubt cold coffee and a plate with a half-eaten piece of toast – was shoved off to the side in favor of his design tablet. He was rapidly tapping away with a frown of concentration, looking very busy, but he still looked up at her with a twitch of a grin when she sat down opposite.

“Morning,” he said.

“Mm, good morning,” she said over her mug. She craned her neck to peek at his screen. “How long you been up?”

Hank straightened, making a face as some part of his back clicked. He had a terrible habit of hunching whenever he worked; she figured he was going to end up stooped like an ape when he was older. “Since five. I think I'm close to smoothing out the last few hiccups in this.”

Since picking Charles and his erstwhile delinquent students (and jailbirds Erik and Logan) up about two weeks ago, Hank had spent every spare moment working on a headset for the elder Summers boy.

“He should be able to see, to open his eyes and live his life without worrying,” Charles had said.

“Also don't want him piercing the hull and killing us if he forgets to tie his blindfold tight enough,” Logan had added. (Clearly a charmer.)

“We'll have to throw a party when you finish,” she told Hank. “Another amazing invention by Hank McCoy.”

He blinked at her for a moment but then rolled his eyes.

“I'm serious,” she insisted. “Someday there will be a whole field in science dedicated to mutation management. They should name it after you – or maybe create some kind of award.” Raven changed her vocal chords, making her voice older, male, and posh (not too different than their lawyer Morgan's, actually), “Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the McCoy Prize for Mutation Excellence.”

“And is the McCoy Prize for Mutation Excellence going to be handed out before or after they stop maintaining quotas for mutants at university entrance?” He shook his head with a small smile, "We have a long way to go before anything like that can happen.”

Raven flipped her voice back to normal and scowled half-heartedly at him. “You're such a killjoy, Hank.” She finished her cup and went to get a refill and an order of pancakes for breakfast. The two of them sat in quiet companionship for a while.

“Say Hank,” she said eventually. “Have you by any chance noticed....” She trailed off as Erik passed through the room and entered the kitchen. The lights brightened almost imperceptibly overhead, Raven was sure of it. She glanced Hank, who was frowning up at them. A- _ha_!

“Ten credits says he comes back in with a bowl of plain oatmeal.” She said to him in lieu of commenting on the lights.

Hank raised his eyebrows, “And why would I take that bet?”

In the weeks since they picked the group up _,_ Erik had displayed some very strict habits, chief among them being his diet. Unless someone else was ordering or they were having their weekly group dinner, Erik's preferred meals consisted of three dishes of unvaried blandness. Oatmeal for breakfast. Lunch was Calibrated Nutrition Squares, which Raven hadn't even known they stocked. Dinner was a cold pre-packaged vegetable pasta salad that was known for its nutrition but not much else.

She'd looked in on him ordering on one of the early days, mostly by accident, but she hung back in the doorway to observe what turned out to be some really peculiar behavior.

The man had been standing in front of the replicator, head slightly ducked to frown hard at the menu screen. She'd watched him from the doorway for a long moment, but he didn't move to speak or enter any commands. At his sides his hands had flexed into loose fists and then relaxed, over and over. She had no idea what was going through his mind.

Finally, he'd haltingly stabbed a few commands. A few seconds passed and the same bowl of plain oatmeal was deposited in front of him. All that agonizing for the exact same thing he ordered every time.

Raven shrugged at Hank, “Live dangerously?”

Hank glanced over at the doorway to the kitchen, where Erik had appeared, faithful bowl in hand. Hank's mouth curled slightly downwards as he said, “You're the one who's so interested.” He hunched back over his tablet.

 _Grumpy,_ she thought. In her mind Cerebra gave the definite mental impression of rolling her eyes at Raven. _What? He_ is _._

But Cerebra was not in the habit of divulging shipmates' thoughts and emotions to each other, so she remained silent.

Raven rolled her own eyes and then turned to Erik with a smile. “Good morning.”

He gave her a small nod, and set his bowl down a few feet away.

 _You should ask him how he is enjoying the ship so far_ , Cerebra said to Raven as they all continued eating quietly.

Raven paused over her lifted fork, utterly aghast. _You're joking, right? Can't you ask him yourself – or, you know, just tell by reading his thoughts?_

The AI responded somewhat shamefacedly, _I already asked him once when he woke up this morning. I do not want to be a bother._

 _You're bothering_ me, Raven pointed out as she stabbed her fork once more into her pancakes. She had a terrible thought. _Oh_ god _, you just want to hear him say he likes it here out loud, don't you?_

Cerebra was suddenly mysteriously busy and did not reply.

Things have gone too far, Raven thought darkly as she eyed Erik and then the clock. She needed to confront Charles before the ship descended any further into madness.

–

The problem with Charles was that ever since he'd returned from _that ship_ , he'd immersed himself in Cerebro and everyone's thoughts in a way he never had before. He still appeared to respect boundaries – appeared being the very critical word, because it's not like they could ever truly know if he was lying.

Raven's trust in him was all she had to reassure herself; it was enough. Mostly.

Lately his presence could be felt throughout the ship, just over the rise of one's awareness. He was spreading himself out – she'd say too thin if she didn't know how powerful he was. And while it wasn't an obvious strain on his _abilities_ , the relentless focus on everyone but himself was reminiscent of a certain other distancing tactic he was known to employ.

_Charles?_

He was there immediately, like he'd just been waiting for her to speak. _Yes?_

_I need to speak with you, do you have a moment?_

A light touch of bemusement from him. _Of course. I'm listening._

It was the response she had expected and dealt with accordingly. _No, Charles, I really do mean_ speak _. In person, face-to-face?_ And she couldn't help her slightly negative tone; her thoughts were more uncensored in emotion than she ever allowed her voice to be. _Terribly inefficient of me, I know. But we could have some tea – well, you'll have some of that awful tea and I'll have coffee?_

He didn't hesitate, though he sounded like he wanted to. _You're offering to make me tea, this must be a serious discussion. All right then, the kitchen or one of our rooms?_

This wasn't a conversation she wanted to have with chattering kids or nosy crew members slipping in and out. _I'll come to your room._

She procured the tea and coffee and made her way to his room.

He was still in his bathrobe and sitting at his desk when she arrived. The surface of the desk was covered in stacks of older issues _Modern Genetics_ and reams of long-hand notes. Raven knew then that she was right about Charles's disturbed emotional state; he'd stopped reading that journal almost a year ago, after the board had not only refused to issue a correction about an article that Charles had termed, “a bloody-minded endorsement of Genoshan exceptionalism and a disgrace to the field of genetics.” (They also refused to publish his letter of dissent, all 3,500 words of it.)

He glanced up when she entered and brightened at the tray of drinks in her hands.

“Oh, excellent,” he said as she set it down on the corner of the desk, the only clear spot on the entire surface. “You know, it's already been a couple weeks, but I still find myself missing this.”

“Tea wasn't allowed?” She said. “Now the prison system's _really_ gone too far.”

“Tea and certain company,” he said with a smile.

Raven hid her pleased flush from view with well-practiced ease – a somewhat pointless effort, because Charles could pick up her emotions. She reasoned that reading them was different than seeing them, so instead she rolled her eyes, “You might change your tune in a moment.” She sat down in one of the large cushioned chairs on the other side of the desk and grabbed up her mug of coffee. “I want to know what's wrong with you.”

Charles tensed minutely and stared down at his own cup. He didn't try to deny that he was upset, which was something, but his answering deflection wasn't much better:

“I'm just adjusting to being back. Last month was quite an ordeal.”

“I understand that, Charles, but I get the feeling there's more to it. For example, your telepathy – ”

He interrupted, “If you spent a month not being able to change your appearance, don't you think you'd be spinning like a kaleidoscope when you were finally allowed to again?”

“That's not my point.” If only he would use his mind-reading skills to respond to her actual concerns. He was so _contrary_ sometimes. She switched tactics. “How do you think Erik's settling in?”

He went still and regarded her with a narrow, wary gaze. It would have been more cowing if he wasn't sipping milky tea in his nightclothes like an old maid. “He seems... fine.”

“Mm, the ship certainly seems to think so.”

Charles's eyebrows jumped and Raven went in for the kill. “Can you explain to me why you seem to be doing your best to avoid him and, more importantly, why Cerebra's been fluttering like a preteen schoolgirl meeting her favorite boy band?”

Charles didn't say anything for a long moment and then, stiffly: “I've not been avoiding him.”

“Oh, for _the love of_ – ”

“What, it's _true,_ I see him every day!”

“Yes, for official business, Charles, which is hardly your normal M.O. for welcoming new crew members. You've spent more time trying to engage Logan in philosophical debate – which, _don't_ even get me _started_ – and when Erik shows up you just ask about his day for the fifth time.”

“How is that not showing proper concern?”

“ _Charles_.” Raven didn't know how she suddenly became the defender of Erik's wellbeing, but it was infuriating. “He's on a relatively small ship with _no duties_ and one of the only people he actually knows from before – ” and Charles _flinched_ , so she snapped, “well, that's more than the rest of us, what's wrong with you? Anyway, you spend most of the day elsewhere. How could his day _possibly_ go?”

Charles set his cup down. “I don't understand exactly what you're accusing me of here, Raven. Is it neglect or attraction?”

“Well,” she said. “knowing your screwed-up psyche, why can't it be both?”

Charles sighed but didn't say anything. His presence swelled and receded in her mind, leaving behind a smooth bank of regret. Raven shook her head, as if she could dislodge the confusing sensation.

She relented, “Look, I'm just worried about you. I wanted to make sure that... oh, even if you're not interested in talking about your feelings with the rest of us, that at least you're not hiding them from yourself. And you're not, right?” She ducked her head to try and meet his eyes. “Charles?”

“Raven,” Charles gave her a hard and startlingly bitter smile. “I assure you; I'm being completely honest with myself.” He looked away and picked his tea back up. “Now tell me how Alex has been doing in your Ethics class. That's got to be fun.”

And Raven saw right through the distraction, but, well, Alex Summers' take on Ethics? Oh _boy_.

–

She acts like a real adult and makes it through her 3-hour Practical Intelligence Gathering class (Charles insisted on officially calling it Research Methodology, but she prefers to think of it as espionage training) without falling asleep or snapping. It's a small class consisting of their older students: Rogue, Bobby, John, and Scott. They hadn't decided whether Alex should join the class yet.

The students are more distracted than usual, owing to both the lingering excitement and confusion about the new additions to the ship roster (especially the unusual circumstances of their arrival) and the ship's imminent arrival to the closest thing they have to a home port, the Muir Research Station. The whole crew tends to get a little rowdy when that time looms.

Their seasonal stops to the station are always nice for a change of pace from the long months in the black. Muir orbits the enormous gaseous planet Providence alongside the moon Slorenia. Their visits to the moon are the closest and most reliable form of natural Vega light the crew of Cerebro get. It's like a semi-vacation every time.

After class, Raven headed to the conference room, which served as an office for whichever crew member needed some space more official than their quarters. Raven was not about to invite Erik to her rooms, so the conference room it was.

She turned the corner and saw that he was already waiting, lingering outside the room like he needed permission to enter.

She slowed as she walked towards him. It wasn't meekness that drove his behavior, she was sure of it. No one who had met Erik for more than a few minutes would make the mistake of thinking him meek.

“Erik,” she said. “How has your day been? Do anything interesting?”

He let her enter the room first, a sardonic tilt taking over his mouth. “I feel like my day has been spent mostly answering questions about how it's going. So,” he shrugged slightly. “it could be better.”

Well, she couldn't blame him for that response. She took her seat and, as she slipped her tablet and files out of her bag, eyes down, asked casually, “See Charles at all?”

Erik sat down opposite her without pause. “He asked me to play chess this evening.”

She looked up, “In person?”

“Chess? Of course.”

“I meant the asking.” God, if there was anything more boring than chess, it'd have to be playing it mentally. “Did you see him or did he just... pop into your head and ask?”

Erik hesitated at that. “He... mentioned it over the course of a conversation.”

She narrowed her eyes, “And did this _conversation_ take place in person or your head?”

Erik spread his hands, perplexed. “Does it matter?”

Raven wasn't about to talk about Charles with a near-stranger, but she found it galling that no one else seemed to notice his recent behavior. “I'm just concerned he's not getting out as much as he should.”

“He's getting out. Just because he's using his powers to do so doesn't make it any less valid.” Erik sat back and considered her. “Do you always wear that face in public?”

She blinked, “Excuse me?”

He hesitated again but didn't apologize for the impertinent question like a normal person. Instead he gestured. “I was just wondering why you always seem to appear like a white, blonde co-ed. With that and your worries about Charles... well, do you have a problem with mutants using their powers in a noticeable fashion?”

She straightened and met his gaze with a pointed look, “I'm using my power in a noticeable fashion _right now_. Obviously I have no problem with it; I'm not some kind of self-loathing mutant or whatever it is you're trying to accuse me of.”

He shook his head. “I'm not accusing you of anything, I didn't mean it like that. I just think – you shouldn't have to pretend, to _hide._ ” He cocked his head and added somewhat caustically, “Especially not on a ship full of other mutants.”

Raven was bemused; none of the other crew members had ever questioned or even _commented_ on how Raven chose to present herself – just as she would never pass judgment on how they chose to exercise their own mutation. (Well, except Charles – but that was _different_.)

In fact, outside of management or survival tactics, the crew didn't talk about their powers much at all with each other.

“It's not hiding,” she said at last. “The change – the _pretending_ , as you so condescendingly put it – that's just as much a part of me as the blue scales. Ignoring one for the other – _that_ would be pretending.”

He smiled crookedly, looking genuinely pleased by her answer, which confused her to no end. “I don't disagree at all. But when you're in casual conversation in your home? Shouldn't you be able to just... relax and be the real Raven?”

“I'm _always_ the real Raven,” she said, but her voice came out softer than she intended. _Vulnerable_ – she hated it immediately and hid the embarrassed flush from view.

Erik registered her tone and leaped on it. He leaned forward, eyes intent. “I'm not disputing that, but how often do you let go and just exist _as-is_ outside of your private quarters?” He held a hand up, forestalling her automatic response. “Just think about it for a moment, please.”

He watched her think about it and obviously came to his own conclusion.

“I don't think the change is shameful – of course it isn't. But when do you let yourself go as you truly are, without the subterfuge, the cover-up?” His eyes burned into hers, unblinking and intense, and she couldn't look away. “Does a tiger hide its stripes to comfort the rest of the jungle?”

“I imagine a tiger will do what it pleases with its stripes and it's none of anybody's damn business.”

She'd spoken automatically, but paused then, thinking. “Just because I'm naturally blue doesn't mean I don't get to use my mutation like everyone else. I wear what suits the situation, what I think will make people most... amenable. And I get the feeling,” she lets her honey-smooth skin peel away, “that _this_ will set _you_ more at ease.”

She watched with interest as Erik took in her natural form, measured the relaxing of his shoulders and the flare of speculation in his eyes. _Gotcha_ , she thought.

Raven said, “Now, how about we talk a little about what information you have that we can give to an investigator, try and find a little more about your past. Then we'll talk about what you want to accomplish on this ship.” She opened up a word document on her tablet and smiled at him.

She'd always been a master at hiding and deception, but if there was one thing that living with Charles taught her, it was that the truth can be wielded with just as much craft and manipulation as lies. She ignored the tiny germ of thought that had just sprouted in the back of her mind. It would grow where it would until the time came for her to pay attention to it.

–

Raven was still shaking her head over Erik later in the evening as she put a comm request through to Morgan, the Xavier family lawyer stationed back on Genosha. She felt drained, tired from a long day and frustrating people, but wanted to get the search for Logan and Erik's pasts started as soon as possible. _Check this off the to-do list_ she said to Cerebra as the call went through and the familiar image of Morgan against his home office appeared on the screen.

She'd always liked Morgan, not coincidentally because he'd always seemed to have a soft spot for _her_. And, well.

Not many people genuinely _like_ her right away, especially not when they first see her blue and scaled, fidgeting nervously on their rich-person rug. But Morgan had taken one look at her and dropped the disapproving stare to offer her some tea. She'd been so relieved she even choked the revolting stuff down with a smile.

That night, after the niceties were past and the situation explained, Raven said, “I was hoping you could put your best people on it. The mindwipes were both very comprehensive, neither of them remembers a thing from before. I was going to go ahead and let Charles head this up, but he's been acting really... strange since he got back.”

“He was in prison, my dear girl. Place like that tends to leave its mark on people.” It was a show of true restraint on Morgan's part that he didn't say anything else. During the month that Charles was on board the _Caspartina,_ Morgan had called every day, leaving furious tirades on Cerebro's servers as they got out of comms range in deep Outback space. After they'd retrieved Charles, they hadn't heard from the lawyer in over a week, an ominous period of silence that Charles, for all that he pretended otherwise, had been relieved when it was broken.

“No. It's not just that, I don't think.”

Morgan raised one bushy grey eyebrow, “Well, what then?”

But she didn't want to start gossiping with the family lawyer about Charles's questionable romantic impulses – at least not until she had more proof or juicy details. So she just shook her head and shrugged.

Morgan accepted the non-response without question and turned to business, “All right, well, let us get on to these wipe cases then. Give me the first one.”

Morgan usually insisted on oral communication of requests or information. Raven and Charles have always figured this was maybe three-parts security concern and at least one-part because he liked the opportunity to lecture them whenever possible.

“The first name probably won't turn up much, but give it a shot anyway: Logan, L-O-G-A-N, no known last name, alias: _Wolverine_. He had some dog tags with that name on it, accompanied by the number _4-5-8-space-2-5-space-2-4-3._ Age also unknown. Possible connection to the Genoshan Colonel William Stryker from... over thirty years ago, before his wipe.” Morgan hummed slightly, catching up with the details. When he nodded, she continued, “His mutation is healing and, uh, elevated senses? Oh, and he's got adamantium grafted all along his skeleton.”

Morgan paused at that, glancing up over the rims of his reading glasses, “Pardon?”

Raven nodded and shrugged, “Yeah, you heard right. Crazy, huh?”

Morgan just shook his head and returned to writing. He'd been with Xavier for too many years to truly be surprised by anything.

She waited for him to finish writing and then moved on. “Okay, and our second search is for a 32-year-old man who was wiped around ten years ago. Name: Erik Lehnsherr, Erik with a 'k' and the last name's spelt L-E-H-N –- Morgan? Is something wrong?”

The old lawyer had stopped writing, his hand still poised over the paper. For one terrible second Raven thought the man was having a heart attack, but then he dropped his pen with a heavy sigh and sat back in his chair. She watched in amazement as he removed his glasses and placed a shaking hand over his eyes.

“ _Morgan_?”

“Erik Lehnsherr, you say,” Morgan said flatly. “Doesn't remember a thing before the age of 22. Oh dear.” Morgan tapped his desk with one bony finger. His mouth twitched, half-opened, and shut again. He shook his head. “And how is Xavier?”

Raven said slowly, “I told you, he's been acting really strange.” She said sharply, “Morgan, what do you know?”

Morgan just shook his head again and repeated, “Oh dear.”

“I need more than that to go on.”

“Oh, that _idiot_ boy.”

“Who? Charles?” It was hardly the first time that the lawyer had expressed such a sentiment, but the vehemence behind the words startled her. “Morgan,” she said again, “What do you know?”

Morgan considered his desk and when he spoke again, he had regained some of his usual distant dryness. “This is not the first time I've been asked to search for information on this man Lehnsherr. Xavier himself hounded me about it for a couple months, about... nine or ten years ago. He wanted me to track him down, but I was unable to locate him.”

_Nine or ten years ago..._

Raven shook her head, confused but not entirely surprised, given the way Charles had been acting lately. “Charles knows him? From before?” _Before_ being before Raven had even met him, before he had started collecting lost mutants to his orbit.

After a moment she realized another thing. “Wait. Morgan,” she said, dismayed. “Charles, he _wasn't_ – he _didn't_...?”

Morgan was unmoving in his bluntness, “The mindwipe wasn't performed by a municipally wipe-licensed telepath, so there is no record of it with Mirador City. And as far as evidence goes, Xavier's wiping capabilities are purely theoretical.” His words were all lawyer, but his eyes burned with the truth.

Raven sat back in a shock so overwhelming she felt her skin unwillingly scale over to blue.

Charles had erased this man's memories, completely obliterated whatever life he'd had previously. The man had been shipped off to a Forged Labor camp and become a violent criminal. And now, years later, Charles had invited him onto the ship with a blush and a smile.

“Oh, that _idiot_ ,” she said.

–

 


	2. Hank

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters  
The _B.R.V. Cerebro _  
Backsystem, approaching Outback orbit_  
 _Date 3726.3_

–

“All right,” Hank said, adjusting his goggles for the third time. “When I tell you to, I want you to open your eyes.”

The younger man in the center of the room took a deep breath and nodded. He was impressively cool and collected for an eighteen-year-old, Hank thought. He has worked with mutants easily twice that age who would collapse in a pile of nerves at the thought of using their powers.

And maybe that was the sticking point; Scott hadn't as many years of untreated trauma and bad associations to deal with – though eighteen was plenty old enough for a mutant to start a good-sized collection.

The two of them were in a testing compartment, sealed off in a controlled environment to neutralize risk to the rest of the ship. The room was specially lined with sensors that linked to their suits; if any breach in the chamber was detected – resulting from, say, a red-hot plasma laser – their suits would instantly envelope their heads with protective atmo-masks. In theory, anyway. Scott just had to make sure he closed his eyes in time.

“Okay, Scott,” Hank said, eyes on his tablet. “I want you to open your eyes... _now_.”

It was pretty anticlimactic from the outside. According to Hank's readings, Scott's eyelids flickered uncertainly and lifted. He blinked several times, and Hank watched intently as the boy looked around the unassuming grey compartment.

Hank suddenly wondered if he should have hung some art or something, but the thought is dashed as Scott's mouth dropped open in astonishment.

“I – I can – ” Scott couldn't seem to formulate any words.

Hank nodded with what he hoped came across as confidence. “This is good, Scott, really good. It appears like the material is doing its job, preliminary readings are holding steady, no fluctuations in conductivity – ”

Scott gulped in a ragged, tear-filled breath and on the exhale blew a hole straight through the floor to the endless vacuum of space outside.

 _Okay_ , Hank thought as both their suits activated, magnetizing their bodies instantly to the ship as all the air violently vented out of the room, _so there are still a few issues work out._

Still, it was progress.

–

Hank was mildly surprised to find Lehnsherr waiting on the other side of the airlock, and completely unsurprised to see Alex, who was practically vibrating with anxiety by the time he and Scott had made their way back inside.

“What happened?” Alex demanded as soon as their masks had retracted. Scott said nothing, just retied his blindfold around his head. His lips were a little thin, but he was otherwise expressionless.

Hank turned to Alex and said, “Just working some kinks out, nothing to worry about.” To Scott he said, “The readings are good.” When Scott just nodded wordlessly, he insisted, “All new equipment goes through several prototypes before working perfectly. Don't be disappointed.”

His bedside manner could probably do with some work, but he couldn't help the jerky, almost curt fashion the words came out in; he always had to explain this kind of thing to non-scientists. They were so impatient.

Scott nodded, face turned in his general direction and expression fairly clear. “Yes sir, thank you – I know you've been working hard on it, and I really am grateful. Those few seconds – they were amazing,” he finished simply.

“Oh.” Hank nodded, a little awkward, and turned to Lehnsherr, who was studying the now-airless compartment through the viewscreen with interest. “And what brings you here?”

Lehnsherr didn't look over. “I was talking to Alex when I felt the suits' magnetic reserves spike. Came down to see what had happened.”

“Surely Cerebro told you it was all fine,” Hank said. He wasn't bitter about the ship's penchant for the man, really. He didn't need adulation from the ship he'd built, just compliance, and Lehnsherr was welcome to make friends where he could.

“Alex was worried,” was all Lehnsherr said in return. He nodded to the shattered headset in Hank's hands. “Didn't work?”

“It did,” Hank said. “Just needs to be ruggedized against hormone spikes – emotions, basically. It's a pretty standard requirement for mutation management apparatuses,” he added, conscious of Scott and Alex listening in.

Erik nodded again, paused, and finally looked over at Hank. “Charles says he's throwing you a party in celebration of your progress. Tonight, after dinner?”

The question was jarring; Charles's friendly words coming through Lehnsherr's indifferent voice. Completely thrown in a way no inventor of a psi-ship or employee of Charles Xavier should be by such a casual display of telepathic communication, Hank could only blink and stammer out an acceptance.

Damn, he thought as Erik nodded and strolled away. Just – _damn_.

–

Hank has been associated with Charles Xavier in one way or another for nearly eight years. He'd known him for longer than anyone else on board with the exception of Raven – unless you were counting their brief meeting at a biometrics conference during Charles's university days, which Hank, as a rule, did not. He wasn't even sure Charles remembered that meeting, given the state the man had been in at the time.

The second time they met was two years later at a gathering of mutants and mutant-sympathizers in Mirador City. Due to recent crackdowns, the organizers had taken it upon themselves to disguise the meeting as something beyond suspicion, something so innocent and incomprehensible to outside inspection that the police would never be able to guess at what was really going on; they disguised it as a comics convention.

Over the course of three hours Hank became embroiled in a very intense debate on the _System Divers_ ' place in the greater continuity of the _Farfield Saga_ universe. By the end he was pretty sure only half of it was actually coded political speech.

It was then, agitated equally by the outrageous oppression of mutantkind and his companion's outrageous interpretation of Farfield canon, that he met Charles Xavier again.

Eloquent and electric, Charles didn't know the first thing about Aiden Farfield and his daring band of outlaws, but his vision for Mirador mutants made up for that (mostly). Hank had never met anyone who spoke so boldly and fearlessly about the future; he was half ready to sign over his life right then and there.

A week later he was caught in a riot and knocked half-unconscious by an overzealous police baton. A golden-eyed girl pulled him to safety and, well, that was that for one Henry Philip McCoy.

–

With the younger children in bed and the older all having wheedled their way into being allowed to stay, the crew and staff all met in the small gymnasium to celebrate the near-completion of Scott's headset. Hank imagined they would repeat the whole affair again once he actually finished the project. Raven insisted that frequent parties were good for morale, especially when they were up in the black for long stretches of the year. Really, given their matching propensity for such... celebration, Hank was surprised Charles and Raven weren't really related.

When Hank made his begrudging way into the gym, he found it bedecked with bright streamers and twinkling lights. Someone had already put music on, and everyone was standing around in little pockets, honest good cheer coming through the end-of-the-day tiredness.

Charles was standing next to Erik, one hand in his trouser pocket and the other holding a glass of champagne. He raised it when he spotted Hank and called out, “Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, the man of the hour!” Laughs and cheers rang out and, now that he'd arrived, everyone started drinking and talking in earnest.

Hank accepted a glass of champagne mostly for show, and approached the professor. He summoned a smile.

“Oh, don't grimace like that, Hank. Take the adulation, you deserve it.” Upon closer inspection, Hank noticed that the professor was clear-eyed, if a bit tired.

“Maybe I'll deserve it when I've actually completed the task at hand,” Hank said. “Until then, I'd rather not be the target of blame for tomorrow's hangovers.”

Charles made a dismissive gesture, “It's a school night, it won't get that out of hand. Anyway, so I hear there's a hole in the ship.”

Hank moved his drink from one hand to the other and shrugged a little stiffly. He wondered what Erik had told the professor. “It's nothing to be concerned about. I've sealed the room off, and will be overseeing its repairs, probably tomorrow.”

Charles's eyebrows raised, “I was just joking, Hank. I know you have everything under control.” He tilted his head a little and studied Hank in that intent way that always made him want to fidget. “You haven't been getting much sleep, have you,” he said at last.

Hank really didn't want to talk about it, especially not with Erik present. He hadn't welcomed either Erik or Logan with the same willing intimacy as the rest of the crew, and it still stung to see him standing there like he had any right to, like he was a part of the crew and not some criminal hitching a ride.

“I've been busy,” Hank said. “There's a lot to do before we reach Muir, upgrades to the ship, Scott's headset....”

_Mystique will be arriving at your destination in approximately 30 seconds_ , Cerebro informed him. He sent a burst of gratitude the AI's way and turned around in time to greet Raven. Then he took a half-step back, alarmed. 

Raven was glaring at her brother with so much venom Hank was surprised he hadn't dropped dead from the potency of it. He looked back at Charles to find him pale but composed. The professor met Raven's glare steadily, clearly communicating telepathically.

Hank glanced at Erik, but judging from his curious expression, he didn't know what was up either.

Raven turned abruptly and said with false brightness, “Hank! Didn't I tell you we were going to celebrate your accomplishment?”

Still off-guard from the weirdness of her entrance, he managed a poor approximation of his usual dryness as he repeated, “It's not actually been accomplished yet – ”

“But you're close, and that's good enough for all of us. Come,” Raven lightly snatched the drink in his hand and downed it like a shot, and then announced to him, “You need a drink and so do I. Let's go do that.” She grabbed his arm and steered him away from a significantly more somber professor.

“Family squabble?” Erik inquired behind him. Hank didn't hear Charles's reply before Raven pulled him away.

“Raven, what's going on?” He asked as they paused and Raven grabbed up two glasses of champagne.

She no longer looked angry, just tired and unhappy. She didn't say anything for a long moment and he waited. He'd much rather stand in silence next to her than try to explain twenty times over to various staff about the headset he could've been working on at the moment if he hadn't been dragged away from his lab for this pointless party. 

“What do you know about Sebastian Shaw?” Raven asked, and he blinked hard because the question seemed so random.

“The industrialist? Not much. One of the richest mutants in the system, I think his company's got most of the adamantium contracts out there. Why?”

“Did you know someone tried to assassinate him a while back?”

The conversation was getting weirder by the moment. “No, no I didn't.” He eyed her expression and offered, “But I guess I'm not surprised; some people can't stand the thought of a mutant with power.”

For some reason that made Raven shake her head and pinch her lips, but she didn't say anything. He continued to hover next to her, completely clueless about what to say or how to help her obvious distress.

_Change the subject_ , Cerebro advised. 

_To what?_ He wasn't up on ship gossip, buried as he'd been in work recently.  _What about the annual report, she's been working on that recently, right?_

Out of politeness, the ship usually withheld its emotional outputs from Hank's perception, but he felt a faint wave of incredulity from it after his words.  _Hey_ , he chided. Cerebro did not apologize, but said rather sharply,  _Don't talk about work, Mystique has started dreaming about budget numbers. She doesn't need that right now._

_Well, what then?_

_Ask her about Iceman and Pyro's latest prank._

“Bobby and John pulled another prank?” He said aloud.

In response, Raven groaned and slapped a hand over her face, but under the hand he could see her smiling a little. He mentally raised his glass to the AI and settled in to hear the story.

–

The next afternoon, Hank was called up to the cockpit by one of Cerebro's proximity alerts. He'd barely glanced at at the readings before calling Charles and the rest of the executive crew to join him. Erik came along, Hank couldn't help but notice.

“Radiation readings mark it as barely a day old,” Hank said as they all took in the image on the viewscreen.

Floating out in front of the ship, large enough to trigger the alert, was a dead ship: an Imperial cruiser, built to carry several hundred, now blown into a dark archipelago of space debris. And judging from the marks on the outside of the ship, the cause of the destruction had not been some internal malfunction.

Someone attacked an IPF ship and won.

“Must of have been quite the dust-up,” Erik said. They all looked again at the remains of the ship, picturing the fight that had ravaged it.

“Who would do such a thing?” Hank asked. _Who_ could _do such a thing,_ he amended privately. Not only going up against the Interplanetary Force, but winning? It was unheard of.

“Pirates, probably.” Erik angled a significant look at Charles. “As I recall, we met some fairly capable ones recently.”

Charles shook his head, “Even the Hellfire Club doesn't send ships directly up against Genosha. Not like this.”

“No, I think Erik's right,” Raven said. “Maybe they're making a move, staking a claim. I can't picture any sectarians bothering with something like this.”

Resistance against the Genoshan Empire tended to be concentrated on the planets and moons, where there were actually enough people to claim an identity and get riled up over it. No movement in the history of the Empire had ever gained enough traction to start challenging interplanetary supply lines or transportation routes. Fact is, the idea of fighting and dying in space still tended to make people queasy. A couple centuries of spaceflight was nothing to millennia of evolutionary instincts.

“Did we scan for survivors?” Charles asked.

“We scanned,” Hank said.

He didn't need to say anything more.

–

That night, Hank rolled heavily over onto his front and glared at the clock readout: 3 AM. He weighed his options for a moment and then sighed gustily into his pillow and shoved himself up.

If he wasn't going to sleep, he might as well get some exercise in.

Normally he'd be the only person in the weight room at this hour, everyone else on board either being much more skilled at falling asleep or more able to dose themselves into it. Hank couldn't do the latter for fear of it interacting negatively with his mutation serum, so: exercise. Unfortunately, on this particular night the room was not empty.

Hank tried vaguely to reign in his disappointment and nodded politely to Logan, who was standing over by the dumbbells.

Logan glanced over and raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised by Hank's presence. The eyebrow was joined by its partner as Hank headed for the boxing bag in the corner.

Hank hadn't had a lot of interaction with Logan after performing the initial examination of his skeletal system several weeks back. He figured he knew Logan's type and didn't need to know more. It hadn't been an issue before now.

The other man left Hank alone for a good fifteen minutes but then, inevitable: “Skinny kid like you, I'm surprised at your strength.” Hank didn't respond, and after a moment Logan continued, “Guess I never asked, but is that your....”

Hank focused on the white canvas in front of his face, “No. Not exactly.” God, if only it was that and nothing more.

“Yeah, well, what is then?”

Hank stopped dancing around the bag, looked at Logan dead in the eye, and said, “I turn into a 400-pound blue monster when stressed.”

“...No shit?”

Hank grunted and returned to his bag. The room was quiet for another minute.

Logan's voice was pitched to disrupt, “I would think working in space with a group like this would be pretty stressful.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Hank stopped again, against his better judgment.

Logan shrugged. “Well, you're vulnerable out here, aren't you,” he said, and Hank's pulse unwillingly ticked up a notch.

During the previous month, Hank had caught a feeling of unease that he hadn't been able to shake. It started the morning Cerebro announced to the crew that the professor had snuck onto a prison ship bound for, as Raven had repeated with mounting anger and hysteria, Santo _fucking_ Marco.

They had given chase, going further out into the system than Hank has ever been before. Near the end, when Vega was just a twinkle in the distance and they were barely out of Sentinel Station's sensor range, even the youngest students had seemed to pick up on the tension among the staff and crew. Hank had spotted one of the teachers comforting five-year-old Jubilee and he had to leave the room before a wild blue anger bristled over his face and scared the child even more.

The school was supposed to be a safe place for all of them. They were supposed to be giving the next generation of mutants a better start in life than the one they'd had. For a while there, the professor seemed to have forgotten that. Hank's been on edge ever since, waiting for disaster to strike.

Hank said to Logan, “This ship is _secure_. We have protocols in place to – ”

“Come off it, kid.” Logan dropped his weights and turned to him fully. He wasn't smirking, exactly, but had that weary-amused looked that cocky assholes the system over adopted when they saw others fighting and scrabbling to build something better. Hank hated that look.

“Restrictions are being put in place everywhere – the Slokovian High Court reversed voting protections a few months ago. Genosha's cracking down on Outback colonies more than ever, and the Hellfire Club's recent playfulness has given the IPF a handy bogeyman to justify doing whatever the hell they please in the name of security.” Logan took a slow, aggressive step forward, eyes daring Hank to do something about it. “This school? With its concentration of mutants? It's a cute idea, real noble – but that doesn't mean its not a pipe dream.”

Hank snarled and lunged forward until he was nose-to-whiskers with the other man, his whole body instantly primed for violence.

Logan didn't flinch or even blink, but out of the corner of his eye Hank could see the man's not-inconspicuous arm muscles tense.

“So that's what you're hiding under there,” Logan said mildly.

After a long coiled moment, the beast subsided, leaving Hank shaken and sickened. He didn't look at Logan again before quickly leaving the room.

–

“Initiate spacewalk protocol 2-A2,” Hank said into the mic before pulling the helmet all the way down and clipping in.

_Spacewalk protocol 2-A2 initiated._

Hank went for a walk. 

Normally he would supervise autonomous repairs from inside the ship, but Cerebro was due for a quarterly external inspection before they entered Providence's thermosphere, where Muir Research Station orbited. He figured he might as well get it done now. 

Two hours later, body exhausted far beyond what was warranted from zero gravity, Hank signed off on the final inspection screen and commanded Cerebro to start retracting the suit's tether. 

Hank shut his eyes for just a moment, promising himself that he'd get at least six hours that night. Then he opened them again and tabbed over to Cerebro's active programming code, the final item on the checklist. 

He dipped into the code fairly regularly, so he was not really expecting to find anything. Hank had to blink several times, sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him. He frowned and squinted down at the running lines on the screen.

“Cerebro, what's this in your code right here?”

Like any high-functioning AI, Cerebro had some abilities to write its own code. Usually it was minor changes, fixes or efficiency boosts. That's not what Hank was looking at though.

The ship didn't respond, so Hank repeated, _Cerebro. Your code, did you do this?_

It was a fairly short but devastatingly impactful directive, limiting the ship from thinking or speaking about – about _something,_ Hank didn't recognize the designation. This only disturbed him more.

Not many had access to Cerebro's code: Hank, Cerebro itself, and, in an oblique and somewhat more organic fashion, Charles. It was therefore highly suspicious that something would appear and Hank couldn't recognize it.

“Cerebro?”

The ship was as silent as the space it moved through.

  
  


 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to lachatblanche for giving me the nudge to finish this chapter, thank you! This was half done back in November and then sat neglected and unloved on my hard drive until recently. (At this rate I'll still be writing this series when the next X-Men movie comes out...)

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters  
The _ B.R.V. Cerebro _  
Outback orbit_  
_Date 3738.6_

 

 

At some point in the years between Scott putting on a blindfold and replacing it with a headset from Hank McCoy, Alex had grown up.

He'd known that of course, had heard the cracks in his brother's voice that occasionally gave way to a startlingly deeper tone. But it was still different to see the whiskers on his chin and sporadic acne on his forehead.

His smile, though – wide, bright, and wobbling a little crooked as he watched Scott take in his surroundings for the first time – his smile was still the same.

\--

Things had settled into a fairly stable routine in the weeks they had been on board _Cerebro_ , so it was with some measure of surprise that Scott woke up a few days after regaining his vision to find the ship buzzing with excitement and activity.

Literally: the ship was _buzzing_.

The ship didn't talk much to Scott, at least not as much as it _could_ , from what he'd gathered from conversations with the others. Before his blindfold came off, it would help him by opening doors and pointing out directions and impending collisions. He appreciated the help, but couldn't help but feel a little foolish, like he was a toddler and the ship his nanny, corralling and cajoling him along. He'd gotten along fine for years without a ship minding him. He never said any of this aloud and tried not to think about it too much – he didn't want to be ungrateful, not to mention _rude_ – but he got the impression the ship knew anyway.

That morning, Scott held his hands up to his ears – as if that would do anything to stop the unpleasant sensation of a telepathic ship – and exited his room to find someone who knew what was going on.

He found his classmates minus Alex crowded around the viewport in the dining room. They were talking excitedly, voices filling the room. Professor Xavier was standing back a few feet, and he turned to greet Scott as soon as he approached. Scott glanced from him to the view, torn between his curiosity and politeness.

Xavier smiled and gestured him forward to the window. Scott stepped up and stared out.

There hadn't been many viewports accessible to prisoners on the _Caspartina_ , and Cerebro had been traveling back from Sentinel Orbit, which was a trip that didn't provide for many opportunities to sightsee. They'd had to avoid Station 5 for precaution's sake. Scott hasn't seen anything but the black for almost two months, but even if that weren't the case, he was sure he'd still be breathless at the sight before him now.

Providence loomed up below them, a brilliant giant of a planet. Scott couldn't see the cerulean he knew it to be, but that didn't matter with the immediacy of detail in the swirling gases that made up its surface. Providence was covered in a eternal storm of methane and hydrogen, which raged at speeds that could strip the hull of an Imperial destroyer in less than five minutes.

Scott has seen pictures and videos of the planet before, but nothing compared to standing up above it now. All at once he was so overwhelmed with the ability that had been returned to him that he had to fight to keep his expression straight. He couldn't bear the thought of the other students seeing him cry over a planet.

“It's quite something, isn't it,” Xavier said at his shoulder. When Scott turned to glance at him, the professor smiled wryly, and he knew immediately that the man understood. “Just wait until you see it from the surface of Slorenia. They give weather updates for any gaseous flares. With any luck, you'll get to see one before we return to Muir Station.”

“I've uh, I've never been anywhere off Wakanda before, except for – you know.” Scott immediately felt foolish; of course the professor knew, he had been there and was a telepath besides.

Xavier nodded, “Well, we always try to station the school at Muir just before the eclipse season. The quality of light is really quite beautiful around this time.”

Scott's visor made the quality of light mostly a non-issue, but given he'd spent half an hour that morning staring in fascination at the same constellation of stars out his window, so he was sure he'd be impressed anyway.

“I look forward to it,” he told the professor honestly.

–

The buzzing of the ship turned out to be part of its docking procedure, which when he asked Dr. McCoy about it sounded long and complicated. From what he gathered, Cerebro tended to be excitable in descent and had to be persuaded to relinquish control.

Alex was over the moon (pun not intended) about the prospect of setting foot on solid ground again. He'd sulk if Scott said anything, because it went against this new image of the daring adventurer he had of himself, but Scott knew his brother didn't really like living up in the black.

He'd tried explaining to him that feeling like that was perfectly valid, given what they'd been through. This sympathetic understanding seemed to backfire. Alex didn't want to think of the _Caspartina_ or the past, didn't want to acknowledge any trauma. He just wanted to be like his new _heroes_ , Bobby Drake and St. John Allerdyce.

Bobby and John were exactly what Scott would expect from seventeen-year-olds who had spent their adolescence traveling the system without their parents. Tall, handsome, and boisterous, they filled in each other's gaps to create a nauseatingly appealing team. Bobby was worldly and outgoing, John was cocky and brash. When Scott and Alex first joined the school, they had regaled them with all sorts of stories of their exploits. Bobby knew all about the different cultures, and told Scott in a gratingly friendly manner that he would show him around where ever they went.

Scott had rolled his eyes safely under his blindfold, but Alex eagerly ate it all up. Here were two mutant boys who hadn't spent years getting kicked around in the slums of N'Jadaka. They were fearless and well-adjusted, casually using their mutations for anything from classes to pulling pranks. They were, in short, everything Scott wasn't.

He told himself Alex's feelings were perfectly understandable and that he wasn't bothered by them. He told himself that _a lot_.

Scott kept quiet and mostly to himself, engaging with the two boys just enough to hide his dislike from everyone. He talked sometimes with Rogue, the only girl their age on the ship. When Bobby and John weren't around to bring out flashes of something wilder, she was pretty quiet. Being a constant danger to those around you tends to do that to a person, so he got it. He hadn't found out her real name yet, but had at least learned enough of mutant culture by now to know asking would be a major faux pas. They studied together, and she gamely told him about the system and school in a way that didn't make him feel dumb or provincial. It was nice.

But he still ended each day lonely and confused.

–

Scott had excellent hearing and a honed ability to interpret tones – he'd had to, to make up for the blindfold. So when Lehnsherr eventually showed up to see what all the commotion was about, he wondered if no one else heard the strain in the professor's voice. It was the same strain that's been present since they escaped the _Caspartina,_ the one that grew whenever he talked to Lehnsherr at all.

Xavier was explaining, “Cerebro will be docking at Muir for the next couple of weeks, but first we're taking a brief shore leave down on Slorenia – ”

“Shore leave,” Lehnsherr said.

He didn't say anything else, but judging from the way the professor paused, he didn't need to; something in his voice or his thoughts read loud and clear.

Xavier looked up at Lehnsherr, his face arranged in a carefully bland expression. “Yes, well. I'm afraid there won't be any fun and relaxation for me – I have some business to attend to in Kärnu.”

“Business?” Lehnsherr matched the professor tone for tone, which didn't seem to be putting Xavier at ease. Scott flicked his new eyes back and forth between the two, fascinated despite himself and shamefully reveling in the fact that no one could tell he was watching so closely.

Xavier cleared his throat lightly and lowered his voice so the others wouldn't hear, “It's regarding the recent incursions the Hellfire Club's been making into Proximal. I have a contact who knows more and might be give us a better idea of how to avoid another encounter.”

“Excellent. I'll accompany you,” Lehnsherr said smoothly.

And that right there, Scott thought, was why Lehnsherr was disconcerting. Anyone else would have _asked_ the professor if he'd like company – if they said anything at all. Scott would of course never dream of imposing, and he was pretty sure most crew members valued their shore leave too much to bother. But Lehnsherr? He stepped up like it was his unquestionable right to be at Xavier's side, be his _equal_. He had no awareness of rank or respect. It was the complete opposite of what Scott would expect from a longtime Forged Laborer, but he'd started questioning his own preconceptions from the moment he was tossed aboard the _Caspartina_.

Xavier was apparently just as determined as Lehnsherr. “I'm afraid that's not a good idea this time; my contact is a jumpy fellow. He instructed me on the strictest terms to come alone.”

Lehnsherr said nothing to this, merely narrowed his eyes and looked at the professor searchingly. He didn't look hurt by the rebuff so much as frustrated and maybe a little confused.

“I'll only be gone a few hours,” Xavier added after a moment of mutual staring. “There are some sights I could show you afterwards. I know you've never been to Slorenia, and this is the best time of the year to see the orchards.”

Scott decided to back off before the conversation grew more awkward to listen to. Eavesdropping on a telepath's conversation was rarely a good idea, and especially not when you know more than the telepath would like. Scott had picked up the habit back on the _Caspartina_ when the professor couldn't have known the difference, but now he really needed to shake it off.

Scott had heard a lot back on the _Caspartina_ but most of it wasn't on purpose. A lifetime of sleeping on a planet, even in a city as noisy as N'Jadaka, had left him unprepared for the surround sound hum and buzz of a ship's engines. Combined with the unshakeable dread of knowing every passing minute carried him closer to Santo Marco, Scott had not slept well on that ship.

More than one night was spent trying and failing to ignore Xavier and Lehnsherr's whispered conversations. And he was listening the whole time Lehnsherr was locked up in solitary, which meant he was probably the only one who knew Xavier's secret.

It was intensely private and completely inexplicable, but he knew the professor was in love with Lehnsherr.

* * * *

It was after Lehnsherr had beaten those men in the mess hall. Scott couldn't tell how bad it had been, only had the din of the room and Alex's descriptions to go off of. And he loves his brother, but the exhilarated commentary of a 15-year-old boy standing halfway across the room wasn't something he was prepared to put a lot of stock in. He waited until they were back in the room to ask the professor about it.

When the time came, however, the professor was uncharacteristically quiet and hesitant to provide his normal reassurances.

“There was so much blood,” Alex said, voice filled with a gruesome sort of awe. “If I'd known Lehnsherr could do things like that, I wouldn't have hogged the sink this whole time.”

“Alex, shut up,” Scott said. “Professor? What are they going to do to him?”

The silence from the other side of the room stretched until Scott might have thought Xavier wasn't there at all. Except he could still hear his breathing, unsteady and muffled, like he was trying to keep quiet and his body wasn't cooperating. It was an unsettling sound. Just as Scott was about to let it go and make a polite conversational retreat, the professor spoke up.

“If the guard survives... he'll be put in solitary. And if he doesn't, well. There's no telling what they'll do.”

“It was that bad?” Scott asked quietly.

“Solitary?” Alex said irrepressibly at the same time. “Well, it's not like he liked other people anyway.”

There were moments that Scott _really_ missed being able to glare at his brother.

“They had to bring in a stretcher,” Xavier said to Scott, thankfully ignoring Alex's contribution to the conversation. “The guard was... not moving.”

“You couldn't see his _face_ ,” Alex muttered, but quietly; he seemed to have finally picked up on the mood in the cell.

“Quite,” Xavier said. “Now if you'll excuse me, I had better wash my own injuries and then perhaps go to bed. I find that I'm rather tired.”

He hadn't slept though. He'd taken the top bunk, which had Alex muttering a very quiet, “ _What the hell_?” to Scott as they stood at the sink. And long after the lights went off, around about the time he and Lehnsherr would sit and converse, Scott could hear Xavier toss and turn and – he's embarrassed to even think the words – sob slightly into the thin mattress.

* * * *

Scott couldn't say he approved – not that it was any of his business. And it wasn't the _gay_ thing – he personally couldn't really wrap his mind around the idea of loving another man, but he knew some people were just like that. More troubling was the idea of loving _Lehnsherr_.

When Scott looked at Lehnsherr, what he saw was a cold, calculating gaze and an unforgiving face made up of harsh planes and a cruel mouth. The idea of anyone loving such a face was baffling and strange to him, but hey, what did he know? He'd been blind since puberty.

The point was, Scott respected Professor Xavier enormously, so he was never going to tell anyone about it. Given the professor's behavior, he clearly knew what a bad idea the whole thing was and had decided not to act on it. Scott respected that too.

–

They didn't see much of Muir Station before taking a shuttle down to the surface of Slorenia. Scott would have preferred to stay and look around the research bays for a little while first, but the others were all impatient to join the Muir students, who had already left and were waiting below. Logan joined the group for the ride. Lehnsherr was no where to be seen, probably off disturbing the professor.

Scott spent most of the shuttle ride with his face plastered to the viewport, ignoring all conversation for the sake of watching the entry to the atmosphere. Their bodies were all hit with the drag of the moon's gravity at the same time. It was lighter than on Wakanda and even Cerebro, which was modeled on Genoshan gravity, and Scott bounced his knees, testing the strange springiness.

The moon's surface grew closer and the details of the cities and landscape more distinct, and it hit him that he was about to step foot on a completely new world for the first time.

“Have you been to Slorenia before?” Rogue asked somewhere behind Scott, her voice brighter than he was used to hearing. He understood why when Logan of all people, answered her.

“I got arrested here on a drunk and disorderly a few years back,” he said. Scott's lip curled.

The shuttle landed and taxied to an open dock at the brightly colored and lavish spaceport. Scott stood up with others, stretching his limbs. He caught the look on Alex's face and immediately understood; this was all so different than the last time they were in a shuttle two months ago.

He was thinking hard about that when the shuttle hatch opened and they stepped out under real Vega light. Scott's head tilted back, taking in the open sky and imposing visage of Providence looking down upon them, and suddenly he found himself swaying on his feet.

“Whoa, what's up with him,” John said.

“Vertigo,” Logan said gruffly, reaching out to grab his shoulder and steady him. “Happens when you've been off-planet too long.”

Scott shook his head, trying to get rid of the sensation.

“We've all been off-planet just as long as him, you don't see us having fainting spells,” John said, even as Bobby elbowed him to shut up. Scott felt his face flush and shrugged Logan's hand off. He clenched his jaw and stared hard into the distance, not wanting to look at any of them. Especially Alex.

“Let's throw you into a windowless Genoshan cell for a month and see you if you're as sure of yourself then,” Logan said after a moment.

“Yeah, John, cut it out.” Rogue said. “Logan, where are you going?”

Logan had started walking away without a backward glance. He threw over his shoulder, “A bar. Comm me when the shuttle's leaving.”

John looked wistfully after him, but Bobby tugged him away. He glanced at Scott and said, “We're heading over to the Hereward district to meet up with the others, want to come?”

Scott didn't need his pity, and didn't want to come besides, but he told himself that was antisocial. So he nodded wordlessly and fell in line, giving a perfunctory smile to Rogue, who was still looking at him with concern.

Alex started edging away from the group, his worship of Bobby and John apparently not strong enough to compete with lure of a new world, but Scott saw him and snagged his collar. “If I have to go, so do you,” he muttered to him as they fell in step.

Alex's exasperated expression was as bratty as Scott remembered. “You don't _have_ to go, you know. In fact, we don't have to do anything.”

“I knew it was only a matter of time before you embraced anarchism.”

“I mean it, Scott,” Alex said. He gestured to the milling crowd. Scott couldn't see the colors of the clothing, but he could see the elaborate embroidery decorating sleeves, legs, and cuffs. More interesting was the hair, which looked just outlandish. “We're not at the group home anymore. We're not in _prison_ or on Santo Marco. We're off Wakanda with decent forged IDs – we can do whatever we want.”

They kept walking and for a moment Scott allowed himself to see things from Alex's perspective. He saw before him all the possibilities his newfound freedom opened up, new places and people he could learn without all the baggage from the group home.

He caught the quick glances of a pair of girls walking past – curiosity followed by furtive realization and quickly averted gazes. He knew wherever he went would be the same. He'd still be a mutant. Alex didn't understand that, not really – he could pass unless someone pissed him off.

“What're you trying to say, Alex? You don't want to stay on the ship? You're only fifteen, you need to finish school.”

Alex shrugged easily. “And I'm fine with that for now. It's a pretty sweet set-up. I'm just saying... Scott, _you_ can start thinking about the broader picture. You're an adult, you can go anywhere.”

Before Scott has a change to disabuse him of that notion, a high screech interrupted the flow of conversations. The next thing Scott knew, a small teenage girl had thrown herself at Rogue.

“Hey, Kit! Watch it!” Rogue staggered back, off-balance and craning her head back instinctively to avoid letting the bare skin of her neck and face touch the other girl.

“Relax,” Kit said, cheerfully unperturbed. “Like I wouldn't just phase through if I actually touched your skin.” The new girl let go of Rogue but kept one arm slung around her shoulder. Scott tried not to stare but then realized no one could tell if he did or not, and so he stared openly. In the brief time he'd known Rogue, he'd never seen her touch anyone.

Kit cocked her head and looked at Alex and Scott. “Who're these guys?”

Bobby stepped in, all bland friendliness. “This is Scott and Alex Summers. Guys, this is Kitty Pryde, another student at the school.”

“So how come you're not on Cerebro?” Alex asked, heedless of the rudeness of the question.

“Too risky,” Kitty said, swinging idly from Rogue's side. “I still lose control and slip through walls sometimes. It's not such a big deal down here or on Muir, but if happened on Cerebro....” She shrugged. “Well, I'd get iced real quick.”

“And not in the fun way,” John said. He accompanied this with a leer and a nudge to Bobby, who looked faintly embarrassed.

Scott rolled his eyes again and looked away. His gaze fell on a girl hanging back behind Kitty, one hand clasping the elbow of her other arm and a nervous smile on her face. She was tall, a little gawky, and kept her dark red hair in a single braid.

Kitty seemed to remember her at the same time. “Oh! And this Jean Grey. Jean,” she said over her shoulder, “come say hi to the new guys.”

Jean took a small step forward and then leaned around Kitty and Rogue to wave hello, like she was reluctant to get too close. Her smile seemed sincere, though, so Scott thought maybe she was just shy.

“And before you ask,” Kitty said, looking at Alex, “Jean's here because the ship gives her headaches.”

“I have a little telepathy, and it doesn't seem to mix well with Cerebra's,” Jean explained. Her voice was clear as a bell in Scott's ears.

“Great,” John said loudly, throwing an arm around Bobby and backing away. “Now that we've gotten the meet-and-greet out of the way, what's say we go have some _fun_?”

The others drifted after them and Scott followed, not quite as reluctantly as before.

–

“You seem to be a very serious guy,” Jean said to him later.

“Why, because I'm not strapping a headset over my headset and waving my arms around pointlessly?”

They were standing in a corner of an arcade, a few feet away from where Bobby and John were trash talking each other over a VR shooter game as the others watched and gave enthusiastic commentary.

The arcade was a retro affair, not too different than some he'd seen on Wakanda. It was the third place they'd been to, having already hit up the markets and food carts.

In five hours, Scott had seen enough things to fill up the data storage of his watch three times over, but most of that was because he had to keep leaving the really interesting places in order to follow the others to the next banal amusement. He wanted to stop and study every other building or piece of streetscaping. Bobby and John had seen it all before and moved through the crowd with a swaggering confidence he couldn't help but envy.

The thing was, Slorenia was so _strange_. He'd expected it to be more like Proximal, except maybe a little bit behind the times, but most of the people and things featured on advertisements and signs were completely new to him. There was something odd about seeing people clamor over unfamiliar celebrities – how could anyone be considered a big deal if they weren't known in Proximal?

He mentioned this thought to Jean, and she laughed at him. Normally a girl laughing at him would make him retreat faster than a Miradoran scab, but he didn't this time – he _liked_ the sound of her laugh, even if it was aimed at him.

“You need to remember that the system orbits Vega, not Proximal.” She said it with a wry smile. “You're going to find that the Outback colonies are very different than what you're used to.”

“Must be all that lack of supervision,” Scott said.

Jean shrugged and leaned against the wall. “The empire already keeps too close an eye on Slorenia, if you ask me. Besides, they wouldn't know how to run things out here.”

“That turned political fast,” Scott said, mostly joking.

Jean smiled, and there wasn't an ounce of shyness about her now. “Mm, we're not afraid of speaking our mind. That's another difference.”

“Hey now,” Scott said. “You clearly don't get the news if you think people aren't 'speaking their mind' back on Wakanda.”

“Haven't you heard the saying, 'Proximals riot, Outbackers rebel'?”

Just then Alex crowed loud enough over by the games to turn Scott's head. He watched him laugh at Bobby and jump forward to take his place, sliding the game set over his eyes eagerly.

When Scott looked back at Jean, she was watching him thoughtfully.

“What?” He asked.

“Your brother – he's very different than you.”

Scott listened hard for any hint of judgment in her tone but couldn't find any. He shrugged tightly, “Well, he's just a kid.”

“You're not exactly middle-aged yourself.”

Scott thought he knew where she was heading with this. He used to get it all the time from social workers and teachers back on Wakanda. “Alex is my responsibility, has been since our parents died.”

He fell silent then. The normal spiel was much longer; he used to go on about needing to give Alex the space to be a kid. It had been a regular argument with teachers who said he needed more responsibility and discipline. Saying it now, after the incident at the orphanage and the _Caspartina –_ it felt suddenly like a big joke. What glorious childhood had he saved for his brother, exactly?

Jean's eyebrows were in danger of disappearing under her bangs, and he wondered for the first time if she was using her telepathy.

“What were you thinking about just then?” She asked curiously.

“You couldn't read my thoughts?”

She drew back and straightened her shoulders, expression a little stiffer. “I don't read thoughts without permission.” She gestured to his face, “You just started – _brooding_. Doesn't take a telepath to know something upset you.”

Scott blinked at the tone of her voice, realizing that he'd offended her somehow. He wanted to erase the past few minutes and return to when they were comfortably talking, but doesn't know how. He shook his head slightly, and she must have taken it as a sign that he was done, because within moments she had rejoined the others and he was left standing alone in the corner, confused again.

–

They return to Muir Station in the evening to find Lehnsherr and Ms. Darkholme waiting for them not-so-casually in the shuttle bay. Scott checked his new watch but saw that they were well within curfew.

“Have you heard from the Professor?” Ms. Darkholme asked them immediately before they were even fully out of the shuttle.

The group exchanged confused glances, and Bobby said, “No, not since this morning. Wasn't he going to Kärnu?”

“I thought you were going with him?” Alex said to Lehnsherr, who was hovering grim and silent over Ms. Darkholme's shoulder.

“Charles insisted on going alone,” Ms. Darkholme said. “Erik's been on station all day.”

“You didn't go down to the surface? Why not?” Alex said, continuing with bull-headed focus on the most irrelevant details.

“I wasn't in the mood,” Lehnsherr said curtly.

Scott thought about his brief spell of vertigo when he first went down, how at times all the open space and crowds felt like they might crush him after the _Caspartina._ Then he thought of Lehnsherr's history.

“Why hasn't Cerebro said anything?” He asked before Alex could think of another terrible question.

“Cerebra's quiet,” Jean said. Everyone looked over to her in surprise. “I can't feel her at all.”

“Hank took her offline for maintenance. Said something about an anomaly in her base code, and he won't be able to reboot her safely for another couple of hours,” Ms. Darkholme said. “Charles stopped answering his comm a few hours ago.”

Scott was so busy working through the implications that it took him a moment to register the other students' reactions.

Looking around at their faces, seeing the cockiness drained out of Bobby and John and replaced with uncertainty and fear, he saw them suddenly for what they were – kids. Scared kids whose long-time protector had just vanished again. With the exception of Rogue, he didn't think any of them had had to fend for themselves before.

There are different types of maturity, Scott thought, and it felt like a revelation. He straightened up, turned to Ms. Darkholme, and asked, “Did you trace the communicator?”

She looked at him, nonplussed. “The signal's still coming out of Kärnu. It's not giving us anything more.”

Scott thought fast. “Can I see the data stream? I may be able to get some more details about his movements.”

She nodded and with Lehnsherr haunting their steps, they walked away, leaving the children behind.

–

“I thought privacy laws forbade tracking that information.”

Scott had pulled up precise coordinates of the communicator and was now in the process of hacking into its system to determine when it had last been actively used by the professor. Everything was so much faster now that he didn't have to use voice command or Alex as an intermediary.

He continued to type as he answered, “It's not made accessible, but the data is still there. The device can't wipe its own basic function history, it would cause too much disruption to running processes.”

The computer at last connected with the device and started to download its information. Scott sat back and watched the numbers run.

“Raven!” Dr. McCoy came into the room, looking even more agitated than normal with his hair standing on end and his eyes wide behind his glasses. He waved a hand, beckoning. “You need to come hear this.”

“Scott's just extracting Charles's comm data, Hank, I can't – ”

“It's about Charles. I think I know what happened – it's on all the local newsfeeds – ”

“Charles?” She said faintly, standing up and staring over at Dr. McCoy with fear in her eyes. “Is he...?”

The numbers on Scott's screen resolved themselves into a damning answer just as Dr. McCoy told them, voice grim:

“There was a pirate raid on Kärnu a few hours ago. Seven are dead and... fifteen have been taken hostage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Charles's POV. 
> 
> Feedback is dearly appreciated, thanks for reading!


End file.
